KILLER COLLECTIBLES: A trace-drawing of convicted murderer Jeff Mailhot's hand — available for $34.99 — has drawn the ire of activists.

Incarcerated in a maximum-security prison in Cranston, Rhode Island, Jeff Mailhot grabbed a pen and a sheet of stationery and traced an outline of his beefy left hand. Beside it, the man who four years ago confessed to choking three women in his Woonsocket apartment and cutting them into pieces with a handsaw doodled a smiley face. Then he added the message: “Just for you.”

Act fast and that masterpiece could be yours, for just $34.99. It’s for sale online at supernaught.com, but odds are it will move quickly. After all, there’s blood on that big mitt and, as repulsive as it is to acknowledge, these days killers are big business in the art world.

Mailhot is the only serial killer incarcerated in Rhode Island’s prisons. There was a book, a few cable TV shows, and now, maybe, fans. Serial slayers, mass murderers, psychotic predators — they’ve become celebrities, in some circles as big as rock stars and pro quarterbacks. Go to the movies, turn on the tube, wander the aisles at Barnes & Noble, and you’ll find their faces.

It’s not surprising that a good number of them are trying to cash in, peddling autographs, art work, their old prison clothes, hair clippings, and anything else they think might get a rise from collectors. An entrepreneur in Maine has even produced a serial-killer calendar filled with portraits of real psychos, each painted by one of the same, Nico Claux, the so-called Vampire of Paris, who spent seven years in a French prison for murder.

eBay has banned the stuff, but that hasn’t slowed the trade. A half-dozen dealers and traders have launched Internet sites where they hawk items that are often obtained by corresponding directly with murderers behind bars. Paintings by John Wayne Gacy Jr., convicted of killing more than 30 young men (and executed by lethal injection in the state of Illinois in 1994), have reportedly sold for as much as $9500. Items linked to Charles Manson command top dollar, too. For most inmates, though, the take is small, just enough for a few Snickers bars from the prison canteen.

As might be expected, there’s no shortage of public outrage. “Whether it’s a thousand dollars or one thin dime, it’s blood money,” says Andy Kahan, an anti-crime activist in Texas, who has labeled such collectibles “murderabilia.”

Kahan is pushing for national legislation that would bar prison inmates from using the postal system for interstate or foreign commerce of any kind. And largely due to his efforts, eight states have adopted legislation that prohibit inmate entrepreneurs from making money off their infamy.

There’s nothing new about laws aimed at preventing lawbreakers from cashing in on their notoriety. After the arrest and conviction of New York serial killer David Berkowitz — better known as “Son of Sam” — many states passed laws that would bar lawbreakers from profiting from their crimes, or the notoriety gained from them. The US Supreme Court eventually struck down the original “Son of Sam” laws — including one in Massachusetts — on the grounds that such bans violated the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

A mysterious new inmate death Despite a scandal earlier this year over a prisoner death, state corrections officials won’t allow the Phoenix to interview a Maine State Prison inmate who has claimed in letters that prison staff abused an ailing prisoner, Victor Valdez, before Valdez died in late November.

Are doctors complicit in prison torture? In the past few years an outcry has arisen over the involvement of military and CIA medical professionals and psychologists in torture. Some critics have even suggested criminal prosecution of the medical staff involved or, at least, revocation of their professional licenses.

Ted's turn A little-known provision in the crime bill now being negotiated by a House-Senate conference committee would greatly expand the number of prison cells available to house violent criminals, and it wouldn't be cost a dime. But it may be doomed unless Senator Ted Kennedy is willing to spend some political capital.

Prison ‘troublemaker’ confronts racism, medical abuse Vacillating between grit and despair — between aggressive lawsuits and suicide attempts — Deane Brown, the prisoner who in 2005 blew the whistle on the torture of mentally ill inmates at the Maine State Prison’s solitary-confinement “Supermax” unit, is struggling against prison conditions in Maryland, where he was exiled by the Baldacci administration.

Time for law to end torture In a collaborative effort between human-rights activists and incarcerated Mainers, a bill to end the use and abuse of solitary confinement has been drafted and will be submitted to legislators soon.

Corrections disobeys another federal court order For decades, as it has with other court orders, the Maine Department of Corrections has apparently been breaching a 1973 federal court’s decree that forbids disciplinary solitary confinement at the Maine State Prison beyond 10 days for minor offenses, or 30 days for major ones.

Screams from solitary The 132-man supermax unit within the 925-man Maine State Prison is an expensive, taxpayer-funded torture chamber that for 18 years has sucked in mostly nonviolent, mostly mentally ill prisoners and ground them up by means of mind-destroying solitary confinement, officially sanctioned beatings, “restraint” devices resembling those in medieval dungeons, sexual humiliation, and psychiatric, medical, and legal neglect.

Pressing Obama for an answer Convicted murderer Darrell Jones has accomplished more in the worlds of media, entertainment, and activism from behind bars over the past 25 years than most free people do in a lifetime.

UMass racial-confrontation case may finally come to a close A racial incident that rocked Western Massachusetts two years ago may finally be laid to rest this week, as a black former UMass Amherst student charged with aggravated assault returns to court, apparently having reached an agreement with the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office.

The punch that took two lives When he was 17 years old, Joseph Donovan made the first of two stupid, and even reckless, mistakes. On the evening of September 18, 1992, in a brutish act of machismo, the East Cambridge native and minor-league delinquent punched out Norwegian MIT student Yngve Raustein.

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